


oh violets, you did so signify

by fruitwhirl



Category: Brooklyn Nine-Nine (TV)
Genre: F/M, anniversary spec, pregnancy reveal (?)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-23
Updated: 2019-03-23
Packaged: 2019-11-28 07:00:43
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,304
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18205070
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fruitwhirl/pseuds/fruitwhirl
Summary: He’s not an idiot—while Amy isplans plans plansalmost twenty-four-seven, there have definitely been a few nights when they both had too much rum and didn’t stop to think about protection. And there have definitely been mornings, he knows, when Amy might not have remembered to take her birth control, especially last month, when she was dealing with a whole host of issues with her uniformed officers and barely had time to brush her hair in the morning.But if she was pregnant and knew it, she would have told him.Right?





	oh violets, you did so signify

**Author's Note:**

> knowing that we're supposed to get a wedding anniversary storyline, knowing that it'll likely be in an episode entitled "sicko," and knowing that i really am baby starved, this happened. slight speculation, i suppose.

A year into their marriage, Jake thinks he has a pretty good idea of how to care for his wife when sick.

Back in their early partnership, when she still had bangs and he was pushing every single one of her buttons, she’d show up to work with a runny nose or slightly red eyes and wouldn’t quip back at him when he made fun of the way she said “salmon,” and he _knew_ she wasn’t well but he didn’t have a clue what to do or even want she’d want from him. At most, he’d manage to grab her a cup of soup from a vendor on his way back from a crime scene, and she’d take it, sniffling but grateful.

Then they started dating and everything was new and he learned that she didn’t like pulp in her orange juice and that she had a preferred brand of tissues— _Puff’s Ultra Soft & Strong_—and that she didn’t really care about getting him sick because Amy Santiago is an incredibly physically affectionate person in sickness _and_ in health. It’s why, when he hears a croak in her throat and a sniffle into his shoulder, he downs a pack of Emergen-C, eats a few of the Flintstones gummy vitamins she bought him, and prepares himself for a weekend of watching Netflix and cuddling with a snot-nosed Santiago.

That said, Santiagos have notoriously strong immune systems—once, Amy told him that they had a running bet to see who could last the longest without catching so much as a cold (her brother David, of course, won)—and his wife is no exception. She’s got an iron stomach (they once bought sketchy gyros off the street that put him out of commission for a few hours, but she wanted to go back for more), and can (relatively) hold her liquor down, so he has only done the “I’m holding your hair back, babe” thing once: Cop Con 2017.

It’s why Jake’s concerned when she throws up for the third time in a week but still insists on not letting it stop her day, including her work day and their anniversary movie and dinner.

“I’m seriously fine, babe,” she mutters from her position over the ceramic lid of their toilet, her knees and hands braced against the linoleum. Jake just hums in disagreement, rubs her back lightly, taking care to ensure that her hair is properly pulled back into a (messy) ponytail. “Really, it’s been clearing up before noon. I should be good to go.”

“Well, according to David Hume, that’s illogical thinking, because you’re just relying on the future to replicate the past, when in all reality Mr. Farmer could murder Mr. Chicken any day now.”

Amy takes this moment to lift her head, furrow her brow. “Please tell me you did not go on a Youtube spiral and somehow end up on _metaphysical philosophy_ of all things.”

“What if that Scottish dude is right? What if our entire reality is _fake?_ ”

“Jake.”

“ _Ames,_ what if he’s right? Are we even really married?”

She just groans. “Marriage _is_ technically just a construct, Jake.”

“Please don’t do this to me right now.”

“Then please grab me a hand-towel from the cabinet.”

He does. It’s yellow with a cartoon giraffe in the corner (one of his), and Amy uses it to wipe the spit off of her chin. “If everything is a construct, then my puking is just my imagination, and I should be fine at work.”

“I don’t think that’s right, Ames.” With her still kneeling, he presses his fingers to her temple, trying to feel for some indication of a fever, or just _anything_ to help him convince her to stay home, because he’s concerned. What if she has some weird strain of the flu? Do they have a pigeon flu? But Jake doesn’t feel any heat, just what he’s sure is a perfect 98.6° before he helps her to her feet.

She shuffles just a little, and he can read the overwhelming nausea on her face. Amy catches his eye, rolls her own. “I already took a sick day on Monday, when we thought it was food poisoning. Anyways, I have a meeting with that guy from One Police Plaza about getting my one of my officers reinstated, and I can’t miss it.”

Jake makes a noise of discontent.

“If I feel like I’m going to die, I’ll let you know to call an ambulance.” Then she grins something small, bites the inside of her cheek. “Plus, I have a big surprise for you tonight.”

There’s no use in arguing with her, so he just retrieves the Pepto-Bismol from the cabinet and slips a pack of crackers and the bottle of antacids into her purse while she puts on mascara. After brewing a pot of chamomile tea to help soothe her stomach (she’d wrinkled her nose when he mentioned coffee), he presses an absent kiss to her forehead as she finishes tying her tie. She glances up at him, eyes wide but smiling, and returns the gesture, first to her jaw, then hovering by his ear, whispering “I’m fine.”

And that’s her attitude for the rest of the morning.

For some reason, Jake _knows_ that something is going on.

He’s not an idiot—while Amy is _plans plans plans_ almost twenty-four-seven, there have definitely been a few nights when they both had too much rum and didn’t stop to think about protection. And there have definitely been mornings, he _knows,_ when Amy might not have remembered to take her birth control, especially last month, when she was dealing with a whole host of issues with her uniformed officers and barely had time to brush her hair in the morning.

But if she was pregnant and knew it, she would have told him.

Right?

She hasn’t drank in the past week (though that could be attributed to her morning sickness). In vain, he searched the entire apartment for her emergency cigarettes she thinks she has successfully hidden away—which, she hasn’t, because they’re always behind the toilet, tucked into a hole in the wall covered by a loose tile. But there are no cigarettes to be found. She’s also taken out the kitchen trash three times in the past four days, which is odd for them; she has a tight schedule of taking it out every Wednesday and Sunday.

Amy’s shift starts an hour before his, but he always departs with her, so he ends up with some time on his hands once they get to the precinct.

Of course, Jake trusts her implicitly, but he also fears that she’s trying to get revenge for the Halloween heist almost two years ago, when he’d gotten the drop on her with a proposal. If anything, Jake wouldn’t be that surprised if she desperately tried to wait it out until October.

(He’s not sure how it’d work, but if anyone could do it, she could.)

With a half-hour to spend, he wanders over to where Terry sits in the breakroom, eating his morning yogurt and reading the news, and takes the seat across from him. Asks him, “Sarge, did your wife tell you she was pregnant with the twins right away?”

He thinks that Terry chokes on his mango yogurt.

“What do you _mean?_ Is Amy pregnant?”

The sergeant says this all a little too loudly, so Jake shushes him, glances around to make sure no one overheard. “I just, she’s been throwing up a lot these past few days—”

“That’s weird, she never gets sick.”

“—and she’s thrown away all of her cigarettes—”

“I’ve never known her not to smoke, except for that one time she tried to quit.”

“—she hasn’t had coffee in three days—”

“That could mean anything.”

“—and she keeps on telling me how excited she is for tonight, and how she has this ‘big surprise’ for me.”

Terry is silent for a moment, leans back in his chair. “Oh boy.”

“I know.”

Idly, Jake wonders if he wanted to be assured that, _no, women just do that sometimes._ He and Amy had talked about kids in the abstract, in the later-on-at-some-point kind of way, but he knows that she might not be in the right place; he doesn’t want pregnancy to adversely impact her career in a way that it wouldn’t his. But he thinks they could handle whatever comes their way, and, honestly, the thought of little chubby feet padding around their apartment brings a smile to his face, a warmth in his chest.

Admittedly, Jake spends most of the day consumed by the possibility that his wife is pregnant and keeping it a secret. It’s a nervous, excited sort of energy, that leads to him texting her almost constantly as she’s miles away at One Police Plaza. He decides that the best course of action is, obviously, to try and trick her into revealing the surprise.

 **Me:** babe, can you give me a hint

 **Ames:** About what?

 **Me:** my surprise!!

 **Ames:**   
I’m not going to tell you.

 **Me:**   
pls it’s our anniversary

 **Me:**   
pretty pls I love u so much

 **Ames:**   
...Fine

 **Ames:**   
Three hints and that’s all you get.

 **Me:**   
ok yes pls!!!!

 **Ames:**   
It’s something that involves both of us. It involves a third person. And you will cry.

Jake could pass out. Instead, he just texts back “ok thank u!!! I love u!!!” and feels his heart race in his chest.

For a brief moment, he considers asking _Charles_ of all people—given an article of clothing or, hell, one of her pens, he could probably _smell_ pregnancy pheromones—but then immediately realizes that _that_ would be the worst possible decision.

 **Me:  
**I miss u babe!!!

 **Ames:**  
I miss you, too! Can’t wait for tonight :)

He tries to remember when Amy had her period last, but he picked up a box of 18 tampons two months ago and she hasn’t mentioned needing any since. Which, she could have just bought her own.

She could just be getting him a meet-and-greet ticket for Bruce Willis (he can’t believe he’d describe that as _just_ ).

She could just be recovering from food poisoning.

She could just be pregnant.

She could be pregnant.

_Amy could be pregnant._

Thankfully, he’s kept from googling “signs your wife is pregnant” and “how to tell your wife that she’s pregnant” by Rosa, when she slides over and reminds him that they still have a money laundering case to work.

It serves as a relatively effective distraction, though, there is a point at which Jake wonders _holy shit what if I die and I have an unborn child_ even though they’re literally just interviewing potential witnesses; it only lasts until Rosa tosses a can of soda at his face _._ But there’s a moment, when they’re riding back to the precinct and Jake’s got his hands on the wheel and Rosa’s scrolling on his phone, when he decides to breach the silence.

“Can I ask you something?”

A gruff, “No.”

“Too bad, because I can’t talk to anybody but Terry about this and Terry isn’t here plus you’re a woman and I need a woman’s opinion because men don’t know anything about uteruses.”

“What?”

It comes out in a rush as Jake grips at the wheel, eyes fixed on the road. “IthinkAmyispregnantbutI’mnotsurebutshe’sdefinitelyhidingsomethingfrommeandshesaidshehasabigsurpriseformetonight.”

“ _What.”_

In between Franklin and Sixth, he spills all of the “evidence” he has to Rosa, who takes them in with a very neutral expression, arms crossed over her chest. When he gets to the end and he’s parking in the underground garage, and they’re finally _still,_ he looks to Rosa. She’s got an eyebrow raised, but there’s something softer there.

“I think you just need to talk to your wife, dude.”

She’s right.

 

* * *

 

Although Amy ends up staying late to finish paperwork, he ends up making a detour and arriving at their apartment after her. He can tell, because her coat hangs on the little wooden coat rack and he can hear a re-run of _Rupaul’s Drag Race_ playing on the television.

He places his jacket beside hers, creeps into the bathroom where she is, applying a dark berry stain to her lips. She smiles when she sees him in the mirror, leans into his touch when he wraps his arms around her waist from behind and presses his cheek into her shoulder.

(Is he checking to see if he could feel a hypothetical baby? Of course not. The hypothetical baby would definitely not be able to kick right now. Jake isn’t even sure it’d have toes at this point.)

“I’m gonna take a shower so I can smell all pretty,” he says, and Amy nods, nods again when he asks her if she’s doing okay, if the antacids helped. A kiss to her cheek, her jawline, her hair. Amy whispers that their movie starts in just under an hour, but there’s an odd shakiness to her voice that reads almost as nerves. Not wanting spiral again, he chooses to just peck her temple and murmur in acknowledgement.

Later, when they’ve left the theater after seeing the new _Pokémon_ movie—“Ames, I can’t believe they didn’t have Ryan Reynolds voice Pikachu before!”—and they’re walking home from the Polish place on Third, her arm tucked into his while he’s got their paper bag of takeout pierogis and kielbasa, he ponders when she’ll tell him. His gift for her is hidden away, somewhere she’d never think to look (his Nicolas Cage DVD box), but he doesn’t know what to expect with Amy.

She’s quiet, she’s quiet even as she leads him to the tall, empty building, and up the few flights of stairs that lead to the roof that has become so familiar to the both of them. In her big, big bag, she’s got a blanket (“Marie Kondo folding method,” Amy says breezily), and his heart grows somehow even more fond at the notion that she’d want to have a makeshift picnic up here.

(For a brief moment, he wonders if pregnant women should be outside at night—then, he realizes how ridiculous he sounds, even to himself.)

Under the stars, they sit like this, chatter about their day in between bites of potato pancakes and sausage and sips of hot chocolate. He tries not to overanalyze everything she says and does—the way she avoids the little bits of hot pepper inside the pancake (even though that’s usually her favorite part), the way she brushes off any concern he expresses about that morning’s nausea, and, hell, the way she brought them to this very special place, where they discussed their future and what they mean to each other and how everything could change for them.

He thinks he’s ready for everything to change, at least in this way.

And then, she’s hesitantly saying, “I have something for you” and Jake can’t breathe. He can’t breathe as she reaches into her big bag again and pulls out a small box, a small box that is about five or six inches long and he’s watched enough videos of women revealing their pregnancies to their husbands to know that it’s the perfect size for a positive pregnancy test.

Her eyes are so wide and nervous that, even though he wants to just open it right now, he takes a second, kisses her softly. Pulls away to see her furrowed brow, to hear her say, “I wasn’t sure how you’d feel about it.”

“I’ll love it,” he replies on near instinct. He glances at the box that holds his future then up to his wife. “Ames, we’re ready for this.”

Because his gaze is fixed on the box, he doesn’t notice her confused expression as he tears into the present. But resting against the tissue paper is not a little white stick with a plus sign like he expected, but rather—

“ _Taylor Swift tickets?”_

He doesn’t mean to sound disappointed, but he must. When he glances up to Amy, her face has fallen. “I know you weren’t the biggest fan of _Reputation_ but I thought—”

In one fluid motion, he sets the box down beside him on the little crocheted blanket and kisses her something delicate, and when he pulls back, his hand remains on her cheek. He smiles reassuringly. “I love it, Ames. I really, _really,_ do. I knew there was a reason we didn’t watch the tour film when it came out on Netflix.”

“But?”

 “I just assumed it was something else, and so I built it up in my head. So, I was just surprised but definitely not in a bad way.” She’s still got her eyebrow raised. “It’s like, if you were going to arrest a guy for murder, but he murdered a different guy than you think. Like, he’s still a murderer. Just not the murderer you thought he was.”

“You’re comparing concert tickets to a murderer?”

“I’m really bad at metaphors.”

Thankfully, Amy laughs. “I know.” And then her face pinches again, like she’s unsure, curious. “What did you think it was, though?”

“It’s embarrassing, I really blew it out of proportion.”

“Jake.”

 Deep breath. He tries for nonchalance but avoids her eyes. “I kinda thought you were pregnant.”

There’s a sort of stunned silence, and it takes all of him to not crack a joke. After what seems like an eternity of quiet, he looks up to see her lips turned down. “Why?”

And Jake tells her. He explains why he’s been so suspicious—all the possible symptoms, her nervous behavior, even _Terry_ acting like it was a sure thing. She takes it all in with her mouth hard and unquavering.

Finally, he stops, and she bites her lip. “Well, I’m not pregnant,” she says slowly. “I took a test on Monday to make sure.” She thinks for a moment. “And three more yesterday. All negative.”

“So, I’m not crazy.” Amy shakes her head, and he can see a sort of shine in her eyes, reaches out to wipe a bit of wet off her cheek. “I know we said we didn’t want to try until after fourteen months, at _least,_ and I don’t want to interrupt your career because it’s important, but I—” He cuts himself off, but at her earnest pushing (hands curling around his left, a thumb resting on his ring), he continues. “I, I just thought about what it’d be like to have a little boy or girl running around, wearing tiny overalls and your big brown eyes. And I don’t know, I just realized that that’s something I’m ready for, and I got excited about it. But if you’re not—”

Lips against his, Amy cuts him off, swallows his sputtering words in that tender way she has, and he feels himself smile. Feels her grin, too. She pulls away, just a hair, so that their noses can bump together and he can feel every puff of her breath. “I am.”

“Yeah?”

“Yes.”

Later, in the warmth of their bed, she’ll press her nose into his bare shoulder and joke that it was the image of a toddler in denim overalls—“I can’t believe they make overalls that _small_ , Jake”—and he won’t be able to stop grinning, will _have_ to google Zara Kids to show Amy that, yes, they _do_ make clothing that small. And she’ll laugh, press her lips against the crook of his jaw as his hands travel down the smooth expanse her back. At some point, they’ll go back to that building and Amy will present him with a box that looks just like the one that held concert tickets. Or maybe, it’ll be a part of her heist plans. He wouldn’t put it past her.

But now, underneath the starless Brooklyn sky, they lie on her little pastel blanket, hands intertwined.

 

**Author's Note:**

> let me know what you thought!


End file.
